Laws and Advocacy

Inline skaters are battling on two fronts when it comes to ensuring the legality of the sport.  First, laws on state and local books often date from a time before modern inline skates were invented and, as such, only address rollerskates, dealing with them as toys.  Second,  many people - including legislators - view inline skates as worn only by young kids as they "grind" and tear up the local library's steps.

Addressing this problem often has two strategies: 1) Establishing laws which recognize that inline skates can be worn by adults for transportation on city streets in a manner similar to bicycling and 2) providing acceptable locations (skate parks) for those skaters who wish to practice "aggressive" skating.

Below we have listed various resources for those of you involved in this arena:

Skate Ordinance Precedents
Common Sense Approaches for avoiding skate bans
Dismissal of an Inline Skating Charge in Ohio
Skate Clubs as a Political Force
Advice for Defense against a skating charge
Advice on Building a Skatepark from the Tony Hawk Foundation
SkateParkGuide.com's excellent website